cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11683421
The EU has quietly imposed cash limits EU-wide:
- €3k limit on anonymous payments
- €10k limit regardless (link which also lists state-by-state limits).
From the jailed¹ article:
An EU-wide maximum limit of €10 000 is set for cash payments, which will make it harder for criminals to launder dirty money.
It will also strip dignity and autonomy from non-criminal adults, you nannying assholes!
In addition, according to the provisional agreement, obliged entities will need to identify and verify the identity of a person who carries out an occasional transaction in cash between €3 000 and €10 000.
The hunt for “money launderers” and “terrorists” is not likely meaningfully facilitated by depriving the privacy of people involved in small €3k transactions. It’s a bogus excuse for empowering a police surveillance state. It’s a shame how quietly this apparently happened. No news or chatter about it.
¹ the EU’s own website is an exclusive privacy-abusing Cloudflare site inaccessible several demographics of people. Sad that we need to rely on the website of a US library to get equitable access to official EU communication.
update
The Pirate party’s reaction is spot on. They also point out that cryptocurrency is affected. Which in the end amounts to forced banking.
#warOnCash
But as @somguy69 said, money laundering is not committed by the middle and lower classes. Using anti-terror tools against someone who neglects to declare some small income. It’s absurdly disproportionate and takes our option to be free from banks away. It’s a terrible trade-off.
3k EUR is not small income.
I’m not even sure what we’re trading it for. Illusion of privacy from your own state?
Considering $us 1 has about the same spending power as €1, €3k covers room and board in Utrecht (the cheapest indexed city in NL) for about ~11 days:
https://aoprals.state.gov/web920/per_diem_action.asp?MenuHide=1&CountryCode=1101
And min wage is set at €2150 (take-home pay, so likely ~€3k gross). So yes, ⅓ of a month.
It’s a show stopper for me. I will not work for that amount because it’s a small fraction of my market value. That nixes Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Spain. I’m fine with tax declarations so the real limit for me working in the EU is the €10k limit. But that’s still a pay cut. And it limits me to Germany and perhaps a few other countries. So working full-time in Europe has essentially become a non-starter for me.
I’m not even sure what we’re trading it for. Illusion of privacy from your own state?
Reread the thread. Privacy from Google, Microsoft, Apple, Cloudflare, Paypal/Zittle, JP Morgan Chase, Visa, Mastercard, the telecoms, countless payment processors, as well as unwarranted gov. snooping.
And that just touches on the confidentiality aspect of privacy. Yet privacy is actually more about control.
Can you rent a flat anonymously? Doesn’t that have to be reported for tax anyway? All of examples I’m seeing here are flat out tax fraud heaven.
I don’t know what those numbers are supposed to be used for, but they are certainly not to be used for estimating cost of living.